I Wrote A Book!!!!!

EEEkkk!!!   I still can't believe I am writing this!!!  I Wrote a Book!!!!

You all know that I love the Irish Chain design, so when I decided to write a book, I knew right away that I wanted to take that classic design and give it a twist. Writing a book has been such an amazing experience.   The whole process has been crazy insane, crazy fun, and crazy unbelievable and all at the same time.

You see . . .  Last year about this same time, I was busily working on quilts, quilts and more quilts.   And the hard part was that I never got to show a lot of what I was working on, gotta love Secret Sewing.  This was my working triangle for 4 months ;)  Cut, Sew, Press, Repeat ;)  I made 15 quilts for the book amid quilts that I was making for other deadlines and quilts for the blog, because, ya know,  I didn't want to leave ya all just wondering where I went for 4 months ;)  Did you notice??

After a quilt was pieced it was time to quilt it and write it up.  Each morning, I got up early to write and write before it got to noisy, then at nap time I quilted and quilted and Barbara hand bound and hand bound (Thank You Mom!!!) and the stack of quilts grew and grew.  And then one day in late April there was nothing left to piece, nothing left to write and nothing left to quilt.  I was done!!!   Yippee!!!  The stack of quilts and my manuscript were packed up in boxes and sent off to Martingale, my publisher. (Who did an amazing job, thank you ladies!!)    You know I did a Happy Dance in the UPS store :)  And then, they were off and life went back to usual.  It was out of my hands, sans some editing, but once again, it just didn't seem quite real.

That is, until the day this showed up on Amazon.   Wow, wow, and Triple Wow!!!  Like seriously, that is my book with my name as Author on Amazon!!!!   Yeah, I totally called up my mom and made her look it up too.  And suddenly it was real.  I wrote a book!!!!

And now I get to share it with all of you which makes it incredibly real and I am so excited!!!  (and a little scared :)    I could go on and on but I promise to share more in the coming weeks ;)  I have some fun things planned, for instance . . . You have been asking for another Quilt-A-Long and now it's time!!!   I am going to be hosting an Irish Chain Quilts Quilt-A-Long leading up to the releases date and it is going to be so fun!!!   It will lead right up to the book release date and then we will have an Irish Chain Quilts Blog Hop at the book release!!   More details on these events coming soon!!!   

Irish Chain Quilts: Contemporary Twists on a Classic Design  will be released on April 14th, 2015.     It will be available in Local Quilt Shops, Online Quilt Shops  (I know several of my sponsors are carrying it, Thank You Ladies!!), at Martingale, and wherever Quilt Books are sold.    Wow, that still sounds crazy unbelievable, seriously can someone pinch me please ;)

If you would like a personalized and signed copy you can pre-order Irish Chain Quilts from my little Book Shop right here ;)    I have even listed it on Sale because well, this is just a happy day!!!!   Pre-ordered copies of Irish Chain Quilts will ship just as soon as I have them. (mid-April)


And before I sign off for the weekend . . . I just want to say a huge Thank You to you all!!  I would have never even thought this possible without all of the daily support and encouragement that I get from each of you.   You guys are the best!!!  Thank you for helping me make this dream come true :)

Linking up my biggest finish ever to Sarah's and Amanda's and Quilt Story  ;)

Teaching and Forgetting

Yesterday I spent the day at Quilt St. Geroge teaching some lovely ladies.   Sadly, I only remembered to take one picture all day before anything even stared.   I am totally blaming it on the cold medicine.  Yup, the cold is still hanging on.  Boo!!

I had a wonderful time teaching these ladies, and I think they really enjoyed the classes.  Everyone was very understanding of my slightly slower cold brain functions and  me losing my voice on and off.  It really didn't matter, because we were quilting, and quilting is fun!!!   We all had a great time and the ladies learned some great new techniques and tricks and that made my day ;)  I tell you what, sick and everything, Teaching is still one of my favorite parts of this whole quilting thing :)   I love it!!!
 

Terrific Tuesday Giveaway Day!!!

It's Terrific Tuesday Giveaway Day . . . let's have some fun :)

First, we need to announce the winner from last weeks Terrific Tuesday Giveaway!!   The winner of the Custom Bundle from The Intrepid Thread  is . . .   Number 113. . . Congrats apple blossom!!   I have emailed you :)

    

    

    

And on to today's

Today's Terrific Tuesday Giveaway is being sponsored by Green Fairy Quilts.  Along with sponsoring the giveaway, Green Fairy Quilts has currently a buy in bulk special going on!!!   These are some amazing deals!!  No coupon necessary :)  And Green Fairy Quilts ships free in the US and discounted to international.

And today's Terrific Tuesday Giveaway is for some fabulous basics, that I know we all need!!!  A Bella Solids White Jelly Roll and a Bella Solids White Layer Cake!!!!! 2 Pre-cuts for 1 lucky winner!!  Wow, that will speed up some background quilt making :)

  

      

You have two entry chances, the second being optional, and please leave a separate comment for each.  All Entries are welcome, including International Entries.  Please just be sure to leave an email address if you are a no-reply blogger ;)  

ENTRY 1 - Simply leave a comment that tells me what is your favorite color to use in the background of a quilt :)  

 ENTRY 2 - Show your Green Fairy Quilts love.   You can follow them on Bloglovin, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, or Instagram.  You can Sign up for their Newsletter which will ensure you catch all of their amazing sales, or you can visit the Shop and then share a favorite item ;)   Just be sure to leave a comment of how you showed your Green Fairy Quilt Love!!!

And that's it ;)  The giveaway will be open until next Tuesday, January 13th when I will announce a winner at the beginning of next weeks Terrific Tuesday Giveaway Post :)

Good Luck and Have a Happy Quilting Day!!!

Modern Building Blocks - The Little Guys

So remember back in November, when I decided I was going to make a Back to Nature version of Moda's  Modern Building Blocks pattern . . . and then in mid December when I finally cut out all the pieces for all 48 blocks.  Well things are finally starting to roll.  Over the Holiday, I kept sneaking off to my sewing room to make 1 or 2 more blocks.  Then Saturday, I pretty much had a Saturday Sew Day (which was so very awesome, as I only got to snatch bits and pieces of time throughout  December) and I managed to finish all 30 of the 6" blocks!!

I decided to start at block #48 and work my way back to block #1.  That way I would do all of these little baby 6" blocks first and not get hung up on some of the more complex ones at the end of the project.   And interestingly enough, I found some of the more complex ones to be my favorite ones to put together.  It really was great fun and getting 48 pieces to come together with lovely points in 6" just puts a smile on your face ;)  

Seriously, if you are on the fence about making one of these, they are so fun!!  I highly recommend doing all of the cutting first,  it is a bit tedious, but then you can just sew, sew, sew.   And no joke, these little blocks are addicting,  you really don't want to stop with just 1 block :)

And sadly, now that progress is going to come to a bit of a hult.  Because lucky me, I have caught quite the doozy of a cold.  I am hoping it won't last to much longer as I am teaching at Quilt St. George on Wednesday, which will be a little difficult if I feel like I am still swimming through the haze that is my brain right now ;)

So I best go climb back in bed and get some rest so I can be in tip top shape come Wednesday :)

Have a Happy Quilting Day :)   

Super Scrappy Triple Irish Chain - It's Finished!!!

Yippee!!!  It's all done and I love it!!!  I finished the binding late on December 31st, so this is my final finish of 2014!!!  The Super Scrappy Triple Irish Chain :)  That's 1936 little 2 1/2" squares all sewn together.   Now that is some scrappy goodness ;)

Clear back in August, I wrote up this tutorial for a Super Scrappy Triple Irish Chain Block and the amazing gals from the Beejeebers group each made me a block.   I love how each block is so very scrappy and represent quilts from all of my Bejeebers friends ;)  The ladies did such an amazing job on their blocks.

And then my blocks sat for a while, because I decided I wanted this to be a big 88" x 88" quilt and that meant I needed to make a few more blocks.   Finally, come December, I got to cutting and piecing and made those blocks.  Once the blocks were made, the quilt went together in a snap.  I am so glad I didn't wait any longer, because I just love this quilt!!!  

When it came time to quilt it, I decided I wanted to do something that added to the wonderful traditional nature of this design.  So I quilted arches on the four sides of each square.  It was so perfect and very easy as the gridwork was already done with the patchwork.  It was super fun to quilt, and I love the way it really adds to the quilt ;)   I debated about whether to use white, grey, or yellow thread as all looked great, so in the end I decided to use #517, Limone, as soft yellow So Fine Superior Thread, because I just don't use yellow that often and changing it up is always fun.  And it looks awesome ;)  

And just for fun to show you how much it has snowed here lately.   It is awfully hard to want to take pictures of your quilt outside when you know you have to wade through this ;)  But it looks kind of fun all on the white powder, and I love that you can really see that fun scrappy binding in this pic ;)  

So now, it's time to just cuddle up in front of the fire with my final finish from 2014 :)  A huge thank you to the ladies of the Beejeebers Bee for helping me make this quilt ;)  I really do love it oh so much.   So much, that you might find we make this block again this year but in different colors ;)

If you want to make your own Super Scrappy Triple Irish Chain, you can find the Block Tutorial Here.  I added a few instructions at the end to help with putting the quilt top together ;)  If you do make one, I would love to see it.  You can add it to my Flickr Group here, or email me a picture at happyquiltingmelissa@gmail.com ;)

 Thanks for popping in today.  I hope you all had a Happy New Year and you have a very Happy Quilting Weekend!!!

Linking this finish up to Sarah's and Amanda's ;)